Our favorite quote is:
I hope women know that they will come out of the fog. Things do get better. You just have to hang in there. The thing that got me through was talking to my friends. We need to talk about it and share our experiences. Only that way can we understand that everything we are going through is normal.
The first woman profiled, Sarah Connor, had symptoms that came out of the blue:
Driving home to Hataitai, in Wellington, she suddenly felt like her head was on fire. Her vision faded. She was on the verge of blacking out. It was just 10 frightening and perplexing seconds but it was the start of grinding anxiety and symptoms that lasted months. The episode knocked her sideways. “I thought there was something seriously wrong with me,” she says… During the weeks and months that followed those first symptoms her life as she knew it began to unravel. “I started waking up in the wee hours of the morning unable to sleep. I was feeling faint and nauseous. My symptoms piled up, one upon the other: nausea; anxiety, achy hip joints, depression, itchy/crawly skin, random tearfulness, fatigue. I lost my appetite. There were days when I couldn’t work or look after the children on my own.”
It was difficult to understand because everything in my life was good – lovely family, two young children, great relationships, a job I love. Nothing had changed but everything about my mind and body had gone south.
We share these parts because they reflect a story we’ve heard so many times. And then when she looked back and reflected on her experience:
“I felt a mix of shock and ignorance. How could I not know this? How could I be 46 and not know about something that every woman will go through? I’d never heard the word perimenopause?”
To do something about this she started Menopause over Martinis — gatherings to share stories and knowledge. Though, as noted on the site, martinis are not required, the discussion is the remedy!
“We should be talking to our kids about what their mothers might be going through. We should be talking to our partners, to our families, our colleagues and our friends,” says Connor.
In the end, it affects us all. Knowledge is power. It feels good to know what’s going on in your body and in your brain. It’s a basic human right.
